The present invention relates to a toppling device for articles, particularly cookies or crackers, having an at least approximately rectangular outline, i.e. have two opposed long sides and two opposed short sides, the device having a discharge path along which the articles are conveyed by carrier elements in a direction in the plane of such outline.
In toppling apparatus disclosed in commonly owned U.S. Application Ser. No. 812,522, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,112,938, filed by Theo Walz and Fritz Glauser on July 5, 1977, as in earlier devices, such articles are introduced to the discharge path in an upright position and are conveyed by carrier elements, before and after toppling, in a direction which lies in the plane of their outline. There exists the danger in the operation of such earlier devices, under certain circumstances which will be described in detail below, that the articles will topple over at the wrong location along the discharge path, or will topple over backwards. In addition, the previously proposed devices suffer from the drawback that their output can be increased only by increasing the operating speed of the conveying apparatus. Thus in order to attain high output rates, it is necessary to effect rapid introduction of the articles onto the discharge path and a rapid toppling action which subject fragile articles, in particular fragile cookies, to high levels of stress which they are often unable to withstand.